Google Checkout, Too Little, Too Late?

By Chris GarrettNetworking

Not for the first time I am confused what all the fuss is about with a Google service. This time it is Google Checkout.

What I was hoping for was a real alternative to paypal, preferably with the ability to use Adsense income to pay for Adwords without conversion into local currency. Maybe even micropayments. If I could be paid and buy with “Google money” that Adsense income might stretch a bit further.

The actual service is nothing like this, it is a desperate attempt to get more Adwords dollars through their door by targeting small merchants with a cut-down merchant service and the lure of free credit card transactions. For the consumer it is a circa 1998 “e-wallet”. So why are people saying this is a “paypal killer”?

Just putting the Google name to it seems to be enough for people to overlook the highly “web 1” whiff of this and for people to write-off the mighty eBay. That is just ludicrous. There are no person to person features in this at all yet, and there isn’t even a great deal in this for ecommerce transaction competitors such as Worldpay to be worried. Had any other company announced it, even Microsoft I think it would have been met with yawns.

If you want to sell digital products off your blog and you participate in Adwords advertising it will be worth giving the service a look over, transaction fees can take a bite out of your profits. Anyone else, well, this is not the service we were looking for.

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4 thoughts on “Google Checkout, Too Little, Too Late?”

  1. Yes the hype came from outside Google, analysts and bloggers. Om is probably right. If he is right then maybe there is a benefit to bloggers; the blogs that convert best in terms of checkout transactions might benefit from higher commissions in cpa ads. They did have access to conversion data before though, through their tracking service.

  2. All the hype WAS generated by bloggers and the media, not Google.

    Or did Google come out and say that they were building a PayPal-killer?

  4. Well, the best feature of Google Checkout for me as for a buyer is the extra security. They claim to hide my email and refund in case of a web-store problem/fraud

    As for a merchant I would value the Google’s claim to cover the chargebacks. And the extra AdWords integration maybe. Though the latter one has little to do with payments

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